REAL-WORLD INSIGHTS

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When is a negotiation not a negotiation? When both parties involved admit that on the one substantive issue involved, there is no movement. Here’s the story.
In March this year, a ticket inspector working for ScotRail, the main provider of train services in Scotland (I suppose you might argue that the clue is in the name!) reduced a passenger to tears. This was a first on Britain’s railways; normally it is late-running trains and cancellations that reduce passengers to tears, but on this occasion, sadly for Scott Lewis, the ticket inspector involved, he had got the whole thing completely wrong....

London 2012 has negotiators flexing their muscles all over the capital as we approach the final run-up to the Games.
In The Times of Friday 23 March, I read that the head of the RMT union, Bob Crow, has broken off talks with the London Underground management team at the UK conciliation service ACAS. The RMT is the union that represents tube workers’ interests. The union is threatening strike action as a result of the latest proposals from the management team...

Anjana – a sales leader with an IT firm – is busy preparing for negotiations with a large bank on renewing her firm’s contract with them. Given it is a decent sized deal, Anjana has been preparing for these negotiations over the last several days by interlocking with the account delivery teams, getting buy-ins from the senior leadership & CFO on commercials, getting a handle on the likely strategies from the competition etc. It is no surprise, given the rigour of her preparation, that Anjana was feeling confident about her meeting with the Client CIO.